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Article Title: Cities and Colleges in the Promised Land: Territorial Nebraska, 1854-1867 Full Citation: Ann L Wilhite, “Cities and Colleges in the Promised Land: Territorial Nebraska, 1854-1867,” Nebraska History 67 (1986): 327-371 URL of article: http://www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/history/full-text/1986-4-Territorial_colleges.pdf Date: 2/10/2010 Article Summary: Nebraska’s first frontier was both urban and rural. Its cities were shaped by national concerns—the Pacific Railroad, the Panic of 1857, the Pike’s Peak gold rush, and the Civil War. That so many of these embryo cities wanted their own colleges was the result of local boosterism as well as national trends that coalesced in the mid-1850s: the popularization of education, Protestant evangelism, and denominational rivalry. Less restrained by past traditions, the Nebraska schools also showed a tendency to embrace the 19th-century trends of coeducation and vocational courses.

Cataloging Information: Names: [Note: Only selected names appear in this section, due to the large number within the article.] Orville H Zabel; J Sterling Morton; Mark Izard; Joseph L Sharp; Thomas Hart Benton, Jr; Richard Brown; James Cumley Mitchell; Mrs Ping; William Larimer; Orasmus C Dake; Thomas Morton; Margaret Martin; Mrs Andrew Jessen; Obediah B Hewitt; Augustus F Harvey; William E Harvey; Edward Everett; William Dorsey; Charles G Bisbee; Thomas B Cuming; Isaac Heaton; James O’Gorman; Jeremiah Trecy; William Kelly; Francis Cannon; Vincent Burkley; Michael Murphy; John Reck; John Q Goss; Stephen D Bangs; William Cleburne; Cortlandt Van Rensselaer; William S Plumer; Nathan Lewis Rice; Joseph S Grimes; Benjamin B Barkalow; John M Kuhn; John H Kellom; William Hamilton; James S Allan; William Young Brown; Reuben Gaylord; Henry M Giltner; Thomas M Chesnut; John Hancock; Charles D Martin; Samuel Gamble; William H Goode; Matthew Simpson; John Evans; John Dempster; O B Hewitt; Henry K Raymond; Henry Raymond; Henry E Brown; John M McKenzie; John M Ellis; Stephen Massock; Lucien A Jones; Sullivan Searle; Luther J Abbott; O P Clark; Stephen F Nuckolls; J G Miller; Theron Baldwin; Henry Tappan; Isaac Heaton; William Armstrong; Moses F Shinn; William Young Brown; Donald Tewksbury Place Names: [Also See Appendix of Nebraska private schools begins on page 358 of this article] Nebraska City, Nebraska; Brownville, Nebraska; Florence, Nebraska; La Platte City, Nebraska; Larimer City, Nebraska; Wyoming, Nebraska; Fort Kearney, Nebraska; Omaha, Nebraska; Nebraska Territory; Kansas Territory; Colorado Territory; Oreapolis, Nebraska Territory Keywords: “Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine” “United States Magazine” “Nebraska Advertiser” “Nebraska City News” “Platte Valley Emigration Company” “Platte River Bridge Company” “Missouri River and Platte Valley Railroad Company” “wild-cat bank” “Nemaha Valley Bank” “Disciples of Christ Church” “New York Independent” “Wyoming, St Peter’s and Fort Kearney Railroad Company” “Platte Valley Herald” “N S Harding and Company” “Jacksonian Era” “Second Great Awakening” “American Home Missionary Society” “American Sunday School Union” “Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education” “Methodist Episcopal Church” “West Christian Advocate” Photographs / Images: Brownville college, 1857; Brownville, 1866; Brownville High School, 1881; Map, Nebraska territorial town sites, 1857; Florence Land Company capital stock, 1856; Drawing of Nebraska City, Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly, 1859; Charles G Bisbee; Nebraska University poster, 1868; Nebraska University, Fontanelle, 1865; Brownell Hall, 1868; Bellevue, drawing from Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly, 1858; Fremont College, 1869; Isaac Heaton, 1858

Brownville College, incorporated in 1857, was first housed in a building now used as a United Methodist Church.

Cities and Colleges in the Promised Land:

Territorial Nebraska, 1854-1867

By Ann L. Wilhite

To My Mentor, Dr. Orville H. Zabel (1919-1985)

In 1856 the Omaha, a Missouri River steamboat, took its maiden voyage to the country depicted on its frescoed ceilings as the Promised Land. Nebraska Territory, created by congressional act on May 30, 1854, reputedly offered superior advantages: a fertile soil unencumbered with forest or rock, rapidly developed communities, and abundant wealth. Many came in pursuit of that wealth, hoping - as did J. Sterling Morton (1832-1902), one of Nebraska City's pioneer promoters and statesmen - to draw in their nets "lined with little gold dollars."!

What made territorial Nebraska a land of promise was the transcon­tinental railroad Slowed by the recession that followed the Panic of 1857, Nebraska's first railroad did not actually reach Omaha until January 1867. Unaware of the approaching economic crisis, however, western promoters and the eastern press expected the iron horse to leap across the Missouri River by 1858. In his opening message to the second legislative assembly in December 1855, Governor Mark Izard (1799-1866) announced the imminent approach of seven different railroads. A year later Hunt's Merchants ' Magazine, a distinguished commercial and statistical monthly, confirmed that six railways were advancing westward and would reach Kansas and Nebraska, "the future garden of the Union," within two years. In its 1856 article on Nebraska, ,Emerson's United States Magazine reported with typical 19th-century rhetoric that "the puff of the iron horse is wafted on every breeze. This is a great coun­try, and a progressive age, and the word is 'onward.'" The New York periodical concluded that Nebraska was "destined soon to become a powerful State, teeming with wealth and swarming with inhabitants.'"

Such promotive pronouncements stimulated urban land speculation. Town builders and boosters expected each prospective city to be the territorial center of commerce, education, and politics. Their efforts to lure settlers and to recreate eastern cultural patterns prompted the found­ing of various private academic institutions. Possession of a "university ,"

An 1866 photo of Brownville includes the Brownville House (left), a brick hotel built in 1857,58. The building was destroyed in a 1903 fire . .. (Below) The Brownville High School building, here depicted in 1881, was built in 1866-67. The building is no longer extant.

Cities and Colleges 329

"college," "seminary," or "academy" thus became an important part of community promotion, as well as proof of civilization on the raw frontier.

Among those lured to Nebraska in this golden age of western land speculation' was Colonel Joseph L. Sharp (1804-69). PresidentofNe­braska's first territorial Council (upper legislative house), Sharp was a Glenwood, Iowa, attorney who boughtlandacross the river in hopes that a railroad would connect Glenwood with its Nebraska twin, the new city of Plattsmouth. Sharp never lived in Nebraska, but between 'October 1854 and March 1855 he helped to organize the Plattsmouth Town Com­pany, the Platte Valley Emigration Company, the Platte River Bridge Company, a ferry, and the Missouri River and Platte Valley Railroad Company. The following year - after Plattsmouth possessed some fifty houses, two sawmills, a hotel, Baptist church, and an elementary school­Sharp and other city boosters incorporated the Plattsmouth Preparatory and Collegiate Institute. Sharp also tried to sway legislative votes in favor of Plattsmouth as the territorial capital. In a bitter struggle with other Missouri River towns - Bellevue, Brownville, Florence, Nebraska City, and Omaha - Plattsmouth won in the Council, but lost by one House vote to Omaha.'

Another Iowan who speculated on the western side of the Missouri River was Thomas Hart Benton, Jr. (1816-79), nephew of the U.S. senator. In March 1855 the Council Bluffs, Iowa, resident chartered a "wild-cat" bank in Omaha (the Western Fire and Marine Insurance Company) to circumvent Iowa's prohibition of banks of issue. 5 He also invested in the land companies of Bellevue, Florence, Omaha, Oreapolis, and Saratoga. In addition, Benton, a devout Methodist and long-time Iowa superintendent of schools, was one of the incorporators of the Methodist universities proposed for Omaha and Oreapolis.6

Sharp and Benton promoted Nebraska town sites as absentee land­lords. Others, such as Richard Brown (1822-1900), came to the territory to make homes for their families. Son of a southern plantation owner and father of five (seven by 1860), Brown founded Brownville in 1854 near the Nebraska-Missouri border. Eager to advance his town, Brown operated the first sawmill and ferry, served as first postmaster, president of the bridge company, director of the hotel company, and incor­porator of a road and a railroad. In addition, he owned the Nemaha Valley Bank and one-half interest in the weekly Nebraska Advertiser, operated a drugstore, and promoted a telegraph line. Concerned, too, about the cultural and moral environment of his family's home town, Brown initiated and actively supported Brownville College, the lyceum and library association, and the Disciples of Christ Church.7

Brownville in the mid-1850s was clearly an extension of its founder, Richard Brown. Other towns also reflected the spirit of their promoter­proprietors. Florence, for example, reputedly owed all it "ever was or

330 Nebraska History

now is" to James Cumley Mitchell (1811-60).' Choosing what had heen Monnon winter quarters as his city site in 1854, Mitchell used every means to boost it: a ferry, newspaper, mill, hotel, bank, bridge, railroad company, and school. Unlike many promoters, the fonner sea captain was financially able to support his civic endeavors; in 1857, forinstance, he subscribed$25,000 fora Missouri River bridge between Florence and Crescent City, Iowa. He also spent over $16,000 on a four-acre estate in the center of town, the furnishings of which included a silver-trimmed English coach, a rosewood grand piano, an imported carpet, and a silver service with three-foot-high urn. The wash house contained a bathroom with a metal tub, and the barn, a floor- curiosities that people came miles to see. 9

Although Mitchell was the "head and spirit" of Florence, he was also­according to J. Sterling Morton's History - "out for all the money there was in anything. "lZ His real estate activities suggest the description was valid. Mitchell was prominent in the town companies of Cleveland, Columbus, and Saratoga, as well as a substantial land holder in Cuming City (twenty-two lots), DeSoto (twenty-six lots), and the triangular area between Florence, Omaha, and Fort Calhoun (4,000 acres). These were not random holdings. An 1859 map reveals that Mitchell monopolized land on a projected east-west railroad (routed through Elkhorn and Columbus) and a north-south road connecting Saratoga, Florence, Fort Calhoun, DeSoto, and Cuming City."

The activities of these four men - Sharp, Benton, Brown, and Mitchell - were characteristic of many early promoters. In the period between the Federal Townsites Act of 1844 and the Panic of 1857, the easiest way to get rich was to buy city lots. Individuals could get twice as much land by pre-empting town sites, and urban real estate usually inflated at a much faster rate. Omaha lots reputedly escalatedfrom $100 to $700-$1,000 in the twelve months between 1855 and 1856; the following year the Ne­braska City News reported that a Mrs. Ping had disposed of her two­year-old, unimproved 160-acre claim "for the handsome little pile of $10,000 all in cash.""

The prospect of such quick capital gains lured the speculator, business­man, and settler to Nebraska Territory. "What magic there. was in that word town-site!" one of those early settlers recalled. "We had always supposed a site for a town, the land of a village, was owned by a great many people ... and we had never even owned a lot ... from clerks and paupers we had become land and city proprietors, and were on the high road to health, wealth, and happiness."l3 Town sites, in fact, became so numerous that in January 1857, a legislator facetiously introduced a bill declaring each alternate land section an incorporated city."

Between March 2,1855, and January 26, 1857, the territoriallegisla­ture granted charters to twenty-seven cities; by January 30, 1860, the number of incorporations had increased to eighty-four, most of which

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332 Nebraska History

were in the Missouri and Platte valleys of eastern Nebraska." Such figures are but a fraction of platted towns; one study lists 414 town sites in territorial Nebraska." Most of the towns, however, did not get beyond the paper or hamlet stage.

Frauds were frequent. After selecting a real or imaginary town site, clever con men engraved splendid maps depicting wide streets, elegant residences, and fleets of merchant ships sailing up the Platte. Carrying their lithographic lures eastward, the speculators induced unwary buyers to investin western urban developments. Reputedly the 10,000 lots in the paper town of Curlew in Cedar County brought its proprietor $150,000, while lots in the mythical Missouri City sold in New York at $4,000 each." The enterprising W.E. Walker doubled his prospects by platting the twin cities of Hudson, Nebraska, and Melrose, Iowa, and connecting them (via lithograph) with steamboats and a railroad."

Probably more common than paper towns, though, were ghost towns­speculative enterprises that failed William Larimer intended to build another Philadelphia in La Platte City, "the place of all places in N ebras­ka."" Certeinly the town, located on the Missouri between the Platte and Papillion Creek, was grandly conceived. Lots were 66 by 132 feet and streets eighty feet wide, with names such as Washington, Stuart, Tudor, Metternich, Talleyrand, Liberty, and Larimer. Soon La Platte boasted a tavern and post office, a free Missouri River ferry, and a sawmill that had been erected at a cost of $7,000. Readers of the New York Indepen­dent, a Congregational periodical, learned almost immediately of the potential of "this elevated site, above the freshets," both as terminus of the Burlington and Missouri and of the newly-chartered Missouri River and Platte Valley Railroad." Apparently, however, La Platte was not elevated enough to escape high waters. In the spring of 1856 the town site was abandoned in favor of a new enterprise, Larimer City, two miles westward.21

Larimer City also became a ghost town, as did even more promising sites, such as Wyoming in Otoe County. That Missouri River town thrived in the late 1850s, primarily as an outfitting center for Uteh-bound Mormons. A ferry was chartered in February 1855 and a steam mill in January 1856; the following year, a mass meeting organized the Wyom­ing, St. Peter's, andFoltKearney Railroad Company with a capitel stock of four million. By 1858 Wyoming boasted eighty houses and 450-500 inhabitents, two newspapers, two sawmills, a hotel, coach and wagonfac­tory, log school house, and lyceum." But at some point the vision of Wyoming as Nebraska's "great commercial depot" faded; seventy-five years later, a local historian could find no visible remains of the Wyoming town site.23

The Curlews and Hudsons were mere paper cities, platted in fraud or reckless vision. Butothers served legitimate functions as steamboat land­ings, ferry crossings, mill or mineral sites, residential communities, and

Cities and Colleges 333

cenwrs of government, education, and local services. As they moved rest­lessly forward or ghostward, these embryo towns shared common characwristics: an upstart, competitive nature anda desire for continuity. Living more in the future than in the present, the West adopwd beforehand its future speech.2

.' Thus, a hamlet was called a city, a rude boarding house a first-class howl, an academy a college or university. Such puffing was more the rule than the exception in the West and, indeed, in all of Victorian America.

Confident of future progress, residents of Florence (" our prosperous and Heaven-favored City") expecwd their river town to be "the great emporium of the Missouri slope." Nearby Omaha also intended to be "the emporium of the W est- the depot of the immense trade between the Atlantic and the Pacific" - even though Bellevue, "the Belle of the West" and" cenwr of the Union," had "the natural and at present the only feas­ible rouw" for a Pacific railroad. Wyoming, "as large and promising today as Rome once was," thought itself destined to be "the great com­mercial depot in the Territory." Brownville's town site, "surpassed by none and equalled by few," expected to become "the most populous and wealthy of her sisters," apparently unaware that Nebraska City (the pros­pective "commercial metropolis of the continent") had, according to the local newspaper, almost equalled Chicago's population of 145,000.25

In reality, Nebraska City had only 1,922 inhabitants in 1860," but newspapers such as the Nebraska City News and the BrownvilleNebras­kaAdvertiser were not just writing promotional copy for easwrn readers; they were also reflecting exuberant local optimism. Omaha, a Missouri River town linked directly by wagon road to Fort Kearny, was by 1856 a recognized outfitting site for westward travelers. Steamboats almost daily unloaded pioneers and freight "Every house is filled," one mis­sionary reported in May. "The howls and boarding houses are full to overflowing, and every day there are new arrivals. Buildings are going up as fast as materials can be obtained; and this is but the commencement of what we shall see. "27

Such grand hopes were not just confined to the river towns. Lancaster, Saltville, and Salt Spring were founded in southern Nebraska by pro­mowrs who believed they had found "salt enough to salt the whole world!" - a prophecy echoed by Hunt's Merchant's Magazine. 28 And the German colonists who settled Grand Island were convinced that their location, in the center of the expanding United States, would replace Washington D.C. as capital. 29

Whether desiring the Pacific railroad terminal, the salt center of the world, or the nation's capital, wrritorial Nebraska's town builders had great expectations. They could found a one-house town called Enter­prise" because they believed what the Nebraska City News expressed in 1860: "We are not what we shall be." Inevitably, such ambitions pro­vokedrivalry. County seator capital battles were frequent, as were verbal

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a.ssaults in the local press. Responding to Rock Bluff's intense hatred for Plattsmouth, the editor of the Platte Valley Herald in 1861 noted that the rival town "would rejoice to see Plattsmouth sunk to the bottom of the Missouri River." Omaha, accused of obtaining the territorial capital "by the most shameless and bare-faced bribery and corruption," was particularly hated by its competitors, which included Ashland, Belle­vue, Brownville, Chester, Columbus, Douglas, Florence, Fontanelle, Ne­braska City, Plattsmouth, and Salina. Capital-location bids in tense legislative sessions frequently erupted into knock-down fights. Bloody noses and black eyes, according to one eyewitness, became too numerous to mention. "I want you to come," the Episcopal priest, Orasmus C. Dake (1832-75)' wrote to his father-in-law. "I want you to see how Omaha, with long reaching arms, has killed every other town within a wide scope of country, and how itis destined to be the mammoth city of the Missouri valley."31

Violence and bribery were not the only ways to eliminate competitors. Salem took the Richardson County seat from Archer when a resurvey of the half-breed tract placed Archer within the Indian reservation." Similarly, Fremont became Dodge County's seat by moving Fontanelle, via a boundary line cbange, into Washington County. Nebraska City pro­prietors, fearing their town would be eclipsed by Wyoming, bought the competitor;'" Columbus did likewise with its potential rivals, Pawnee City and Cleveland. ''"

The towns of territorial Nebraska's urban frontier were expectant, upstart cities that often competed ruthlessly for such top prizes as the territorial capital, county seat, or railroad terminal. But the residents of these "young Chicagos, increscent New Yorks, precocious Philadel­phias and infant Londons"" also wanted stability and continuity with their former lives. Therefore, they tried to reproduce patterns and institutions characteristic of older, more established communities.

The businessmen-boosters who dominated the urban frontier of N e­braska Territory came west to make money. But many also came to make homes and to attract home-makers. Families s(,ught the familiar: church spires, schools and colleges, houses of wood wld brick, tree-lined streets. Above all, these first settlers sought continuity amidst the change and dis­ruption of their emigrant lives. They settled along the rivers and wooded areas of eastern Nebraska. They imported prefabricated houses from Chicago, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh.36 They adopted, with few mod­ifications, municipal systems and legal codes from eastern states. Politically, they allied themselvas with eastern parties as Democrats, Douglas Democrats, Whigs, or Free Soilers. Though they broadened the base of egalitarianism and individualism, the first Nebraskans retained a sense of class structure and genteel culture. Even "in the midst of a general scramble for wealth," a Nebraska City booster insisted, "The intelligence of her citizens has not allowed the youth of Nebraska City to

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Cities and Colleges 337

grow up uncouth in manners and unpolished by the refinements and elegancies of a judicious mental training. ":),

These words by Thomas Morton (1829-87), proprietor of the Nebras­ka City News, cannot be dismissed as merely promotional hype. As early as the spring of 1855, Margaret Martin (later Mrs. Andrew Jessen) operated a private elementary school; nineteen other women and men taught private schools in Nebraska Cily before the opening of the public system on January 2, 1860. In September 1857, Obediah B. Hewitt (1828-98), a lawyer from Chicago, openeda private high school in which he offered courses in languages and "higher English branches." That same fall, a Mathematical School and Drawing Academy was conducted by two brothers: Augustus F. Harvey (1830-1900), a former mathematics instructor at Rugby Academy in Washington, D. C., and William E. Harvey (1831-79), a surveyor and topographer."

A pparently genuine support for education existed in Nebraska Cily, a Missouri River town and supply center for western forts. Reading other issues of the Nebraska City News reveals that by the winter of 1859-60 the cultural opportunities of Nebraska's largest town (pop. 1,922)" included a sizeable library, a lyceum named after Harvard President Edward Everett, an orchestra, saxhorn band, and two theatres. Pianists could find all the latest sheet music atN .S. Harding and Company, while theatre-goers chose among such splendid attractions as Alonzo the Brave, Don Juan, Othello, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Yankee Door Keeper Out- Witted.

To the individual such refinements and elegancies provided a psychic link that made transition from East to West possible. These links were particularly sought by women, the persons most affected by disruption and change. The William Dorsey family, who came to Nebraska Cily in the spring of 1857, had for years enjoyed "the benefits of schools, churches, and the best of sociely" in Indianapolis when financial reverses forced them westward. The crudily of wilderness life was often painful to the Dorsey women, and rituals of refinement were preserved. As daughter Mollie recorded in her diary, every Sunday morning the family­alone on their homestead - dressed up as if they were "in civilization." Hoop skirts must have been inconvenient, but "to be out of the world and outoffashion too is a little too hard," wrote Mollie, "so we persist in the slyle, and when the boughten ones give out, we substitute small grapevines." With a similar concern for "keeping up appearances," the Dorseys could entertain unexpected dinner guests with simple pioneer food enhanced by a snowy linen cloth, fine glassware, and handaome dishes. "

Hoop skirts and snowy linen, prefabricated houses, churches and schools - all were threads of continuily binding East and West. In their effort to recreate a familiar landscape, these early Nebraska towns repeated the patterns of older towns and reproduced similar institutions,

338 Nebraska History

particularly those of church and college. "A settler could hardly encamp on the prairies," noted one observer, "but a college would spring up beside his wagon,"-11

The flrst territorial legislature chartered three institutions of higher education: the Nebraska University of Fontanelle, Simpson University at Omaha, and the Nebraska City Collegiate and Preparatory Institute. Between 1854 and 1867 representatives from twenty-five towns introduced thirty-one bills of incorporation for a total of ten universities, seven colleges, five collegiate institutes, seven seminaries, one academy) and one biblical institute."

Only twenty-three of these thirty-one institutions received charters; the remaining applications were lost in the cogs of legislative machinery. The bill to incorporate the Omaha Medical University and Marine Hos­pital, for example, passed the House but failed to reach the Council. The Wyoming College bill, on the other hand, passed the House and received two readings in the Council. But the following day, a brawl between those who wanted Omaha to remain the territorial capital and those who favored nearby Florence resulted in an exodus oflegislators to Florence. The session adjourned soon afterwards. Table Rock Seminary's charter also got lost amidst political controversy; Governor Samuel Black (1818-62) vetoed the bill to incorporate the seminary as partofa general crackdown on corporations and land monopolies. '.1

The charters granted by the territorial legislature followed a basic form. In most cases, corporate powers (such as self-perpetuation, making contracts, and raising capital stock) rested with a group of three to twenty men who also constituted the first board of trustees. All personalty and real estate (which in the earliest charters was limited to 1,000 acres) were tax exempt. Johnson Seminary in Tecumseh, incorporated by the county commissioners, was the only institution empowered to tax other property to raise $1,000 annually for five successive years."

The institutions were to be open to all Christians; all idle, vicious, or immoral persons, however, were subject to suspension and expulsion. St. Mary's Female Academy in the Catholic colony at St. John's in Dakota County added the provision that "for decorum sake all students shall be required to comply externally with the exterior forms of divine worship in said institution."~"

Typically, the object of each corporation was to promote "the general interests of education" and "to qualify students to engage in the several pursuits and employments of society and to discharge honorably and usefully the various duties oflife."" Salem Collegiate Institute, however, more specifically indicated its intent "to build up and maintain, in the town of Salem, an institution ofleaming of the highest class for males and females, to teach and inculcate the Christian faith, and morality of the sacred scriptures, and for the promotion of the arts and sciences."47

Of the twenty-three acts of incorporation and the eight aborted

Cities and Colleges 339

attempts to obtain legal charters, only five produced more than paper institutions: Brownville College, Nebraska University at Fontanelle, the Nemaha Valley Semin81Y and N annal Institute in Pawnee City (Pawnee County), Oreapolis Seminary, and Peru (Mount Vernon) Seminary. Yet, even the paper colleges are important as indicators of city and church boosterism. The booster pattern, as well as the communal and individual desire for continuity, becomes even clearer when one goes beyond the session laws and legislative journals. Territorial newspapers, local his­tories, church records, and biographical analyses of school founders and incorporators reveal not only more extensive educational activity than previous studies have indicated, but also more church involvement."

The appendix to this article lists fifty-three private and corporate educational institutions founded in territorial Nebraska. An attempt has been made to include all legally incorporated schools, all church-related schools, all community proposals for institutions of higher education, and all schools using the titles of university, college, seminary and academy. Precision in tenninology has been difficult. Sodom College in Cass County, for instance, was taught by sixteen-year-old Mary Rhea and was probably never more than an elementary school. Talbot Hall near N e­braska City, on the other hand, was technically an Episcopalian boys' academy (elementary school), but it offered instruction from the primmy through junior college level. In 1868 Talbot Hall wasre-organized as the Nebraska College and Divinity School:"

The 19th-century seminary (not a school of theology unless so designated) usually offered either secondary or higher education. The Nemaha Valley Seminary in Pawnee City proposed to teach "all branches taught in the best colleges" and had the legal right, as did Florence Seminary, "to confer degrees in the liberal arts and sciences, and to do all other things for the encouragement of religion and learning which are lawfully done by the most approved seminaries and colleges in the United States." Oreapolis Seminary, on the other hand, offered college preparatory or high school courses and was apparently intended to feed into Oreapolis University. The Omaha City Female High School, operated by Laura and Helen Mar LeSeur, was also known as "the Omaha Seminary" and the "Misses LeSeurs School." Its curriculum ranged from arithmetic and penmanship to algebra, geometry, English composition, ancient and modern history, chemis­try, botany, natural philosophy, German, and French." It was probably intended, as most mid-19th-century female seminaries were,to pro­vide terminal education for women. Thus one cannot automatically exclude high schools from a study of 19th-century higher education. As one observer noted at mid-century, many high schools "rank with the best colleges, and for practical purposes, perhaps, surpass them.'-'"

The use of the word "college" in this study, therefore, is more generic than precise. Probably no territorial Nebraska school offered instruction

The Reverend Charles G. Bisbee, principal and teacher at Nebraska University, Fontanelle.

Cities and Colleges 341

comparable to present-day colleges and universities. Of the fifty-three educational institutions listed in the appendix, eleven were by title univer­sities, thirteen were colleges or collegiate institutes, twelve were seminaries, and one a Biblical institute; the rest used the more modest designations of academy, hall, school, or high school. Twenty-six are known to have opened, and nearly half of these operated for more than one year. When some of the schools closed is not known; not all towns had newspapers and those that did tended to under-record failures. School openings were announced; closings seldom were.

Taken as a group, Nebraska's territorial colleges can be character­ized in two ways. First, they reflected national movements: the populari­zation of education, Protestant evangelism, sectarian rivalry, and the trend toward coeducation and vocational courses. Second, most of the schools were local, independent efforts that were not part of long-range terri­torial or denominational planning. The inability of small towns and churches to support neighborhood colleges resulted in a high mortality rate.

The first national movement that affected Nebraska college founding in the 1850s and 1860s was that of popular education. The rapid spread of academic institutions in the 19th century was part of the popularization that early became the most distinctive characteristic of American education."' Education was necessary, as Nebraska's acting governor, Thomas B. Cuming (1828-58), stated in 1855, "to guarantee the per­petuity offree institutions";53 it was the indispensable weapon of popular sovereignty against tyranny and aristocratic machinations. Schools were also guardians of public morality, institutions designed to inculcate the values sacred to God, home, and country. And, finally, education was believed to be economically important, both as a social elevator to individual success and as a basis for community prosperity.

The Jacksonian era, with its atmosphere of expanding egalitarianism and belief in inevitable progress, founded some 133 permanent colleges between 1830 and 1861. Hundreds of others flourished for a time and died.54 Territorial Nebraska was part of this boom period of college founding, an activity closely linked with a second national trend, Protes­tant evangelism.

With an exuberance unleashed by the Second Great Awakening of religious revivalism in the 1790s and early 1800s, Protestant mis­sionaries followed the great migrations westward. These agents of the American Home Missionary Society, the American Tract Society, the American Bible Society, the American Sunday School Union, and the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the W est hurried to the outposts of Zion to reclaim the wilderness from bar­barism and infidelity. They came, as the Reverend Isaac Heaton (1808-93) noted, to lay foundations anew, each denomination anxious to secure its own interest and to get in town ahead of the saloon. 55

In the Protestant crusade against what were viewed as Satan's legions

342 Nebraska History

- atheism, infidelity, popery, and Mormonism - education was the chief weapon. Clergymen saw the college as the citadel of Christianity, "its magazine, thedepotoftroops, its arsenal and its fortress, combinedin one."56 One of the battle grounds was Nebraska Territory: a territory organized in the decade in which the forces of popular education and aggressive Cbristianity reached their apex. The third national movement, therefore, that influenced Nebraska college founding in the 1850s and 1860s was sectarian rivalry. Nowhere was the aggressive competitive­ness within American Protestantism and between Protestants and Catholics more obvious than in education. Each denomination aspired to outdo the others in the number of its schools, particularly in the West

Thirty-three, or sixty-two percent, of the fifty-three educational institutions listed in the appendix are known to have been church-related Members of the Methodist Episcopal Church opened six schools and chartered or proposed nine others; Catholics opened four and chartered three additional schools; Episcopalians opened four and chartered another; Congregationalists opened three; Presbyterians opened one and chartered one other; and the Methodist Protestant Church opened one. The Baptists and Disciples of Christ each proposed a school, but when the institutions opened, they were supported by other denominations. Of the fifteen church-related institutions that were legally incorporated, sec­terian control was indicated explicitly in only five charters. The 1858 amendment to Nebraska University's charter empowered the Con­gregational Association of Nebraska to elect trustees; the charters of Cass County University, Oreapolis Seminary, Peru Seminary, and Simpson University gave similar power to the Methodist annual con­ference within whose bounds each institution was located 57

Biographical analysis of the incorporators and promoters of N ebras­ka's territorial colleges reveals the full extent of church-relatedness. The University of Columbus, forinstence, was chartered in 1860 by the Right Reverend James O'Gorman (1809-74)' the Vicar Apostolic of Nebras­ka, and the three other Nebraska priests: Fr. Jeremiah Trecy (1821-89), Fr. William Kelly (c. 1820-1907), and Fr. Francis Cannon, O.S.B. The other incorporators were Catholic laymen: Vincent Burkley (1818-98) and Michael Murphy (1835-1905) of Omaha and John Reck (c. 1816-63), a Columbus farmer." Although a Catholic affiliation was not mentioned in the legal charter, the Columbus university was clearly a Catholic educational venture.

Similarly, All-Souls College in Bellevue, chartered in 1864, was intend­ed to be an Episcopal school. Four of its five incorporators are known to have been prominent Episcopalians in the Bellevue-Omaha area. Fr. Orasmus C. Dake, rector of Trinity Church, Omaha, preached once a month at Bellevue from 1862 to 1864; John Q. Goss (1827-1918) and Stephen D. Bangs (1829-1919) were the lay leaders of St James' (Holy Trinity) Episcopal Church in Bellevue; and William Cleburne (b. 1826),

8111"1811'11' .. •

Academic Deparlment---for :Soth Sexes. TRUSTEES.

Rzv, R. GA.YLORD. Pre~ft. Omaha. \ REV, E. B. HURLBUtt Papillion. ROYAL BUCK, Esq,. Nehrl18ko. City. .. C. G. BIS8EE, l'-ontenolle. THOMAS OIBSON. l!'onteueUe. ,. FaED. ALT,EY,WeepingWater. r. N. TAYLOR, Columbus. UENRY SPRICK. Esq .• Fontanelle. Rg,', I. E. HEATON, Fremout.

CHART.ES H. BISBIH'}, A. M •• I'RI!lCfPAI ••

NEBRASKA UNIVERSITY Is located, in the pleasant "illage of l!'ontenelle. an elevated site com­manding an extensive view of the Platte Valley. It is nine WilCli from Fremont. a station on the Union Pacifio Ro.ilrowl.

The Academic Department is now open for Students. The COntlge De­partment will receive Il.ttention as soon as a suffioient etlUl'~ Gao be prepared.

r.r:!oJ R MS t

Of 13 weeks each. begin on the 3d Tuetldl\y of SeJltember, the 1st Tl.lcstlay of Ja.nuary, and the 1st Tuesday of April.

T·UI~.rION

In tuh'ance: l)er term: Common Engiillh, $6. JIigher English, $K; LanM gUllges, $10. Instrumental Music extra.

The German claa!! will be taught by Rev. J. F. Kenhnan.

HOARD And washing $~.!j() to $tOO per weck, obtl\ined in private families.

II RAN<~ II Eel Usua.lIy ta.ught in Academies and High Schools ma)' be pur.;sued here. Permanent students will find our courses of study so arranged that th,,)· ca.n receive thorough instruction in Vocal Music, Penmanship, Book Keep· ing, &0.

Stlldenta ofa term or two cannot always select the branches they wish. We regard two studies well rnaatered better than three or four half

learned. Students shol.l1d. if convenient, bring bedding, &e., for their own rooms:

allm such modern text books 88 they may have. They tlhonld be present every day of the term.

Those who come here must not expeot an the conveniences I\nd Inxl.lricM of older regions; but in our young people's prayer meetings, in the commor. llehools calling for teaehers. in the growing interestll of this rich and heo.lthy region, all will find a.bunda.nt opportunity for exercising every developin5t power.

PeI'ilons wishing other information should writo definite questions, eneiooe a. stamp. llnd address

l!'ONTI<lNF.LT,F., NitR., 1868. 1lI'ontenelJe, Neb.

344 Nebraska History

a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, was junior warden of S1:. Mark's in Omaha and later on the Brownell Hall faculty."

The University of Columbus and All-Souls College were local efforts to found denominational colleges. Biographical analysis of the incor­porators who fOlmed the first board of trustees of the University of N e­braska at Saratoga, however, reveals that a fOlmidable groupofleaders in the Presbyterian Church of the U.S.A. (Old School) were involved. Headingthe list of 185 7 incorporators was D r. Cortlandt Van Rensselaer (1808-60), secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Education. A man of independentmeans, this scion of the old Hudson River patron family sup­ported Christian education, including two'Presbyterian schools in Kan­sas Territory. 6(l

Other national church leaders on Saratoga's board were two theol­ogy professors - the Reverend Dr. William S. Plumer (1802-80) of Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and the Reverend Dr. Nathan Lewis Rice (1807 -77) of Chicago - and a prominent Ohio minister, the Reverend Joseph S. Grimes (b. 1827), who was expected to found a church in Omaha." The remaining incorporator-trustees were Nebraska and Iowa clergy and laymen. Banker Benjamin B. Barkalow (1819-1904), Dr. John M. Kuhn, and John H. Kellom (1818-91) were lay leaders of Omaha Presbyterian churches; the Reverend William Hamilton (1811-91) and James S. Allan (b. 1805) represented the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions in Bellevue; the Reverend William Young Brown (b. 1827) was a Princeton-trained minister who left the New Lisbon (Ohio) Presbytery to speculate in Nebraska Territory; and the Reverend Reuben Gaylord (1812-80) was the Congregational agent for the American Home Missionary Society. 62

In addition to these area churchmen, the Saratoga university board consisted of the Reverend Henry M. Giltner (1827-1903) of Nebraska City, missionary of the Board of Home Missions; the Reverend Thomas M. Chesnut (c. 1803-72), founder of First Presbyterian, Sioux City, Iowa; the Reverend John Hancock (c. 1819-92) and Thomas Officer, founders of the Council Bluffs Presbyterian Church; and the Reverend Charles D. Martln and Samuel Gamble, Dakota County Presbyterians.63

Clearly, therefore, the Saratoga university was intended to be an impor­tant - and more than local - Presbyterian educational endeavor.

Religious affiliation wasnotalways as obvious as itwas with All-Souls College and the Columbus and Saratoga universities; sometimes, as with the Nemaha Valley Seminary and Normal Institute, the church connec­tion was determined by one person. Mostofthe incorporators of the Paw­nee City school in 1864 were members of the Disciples ofCbrist. Yetthe Nemaha Valley Seminary and Normal Institute was actually the brain child of its first principal, John M. McKenzie (1830-1918), a Methodist and brother-in-law of the local Methodist minister. In the spring of 1865 the Nebraska Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church officially

This single building housing Nebraska University at Fontanelle was destroyed by fire December 6, 1865 ... Female students of Brownell Hall stand on the porch of the school building, the former Saratoga Hotel, which burned in 1868. Cour­tesy of Brownell-Talbot School.

346 Nebraska History

recommended the institution to its constituency and, according to one conference minister, the school was "largely patronized by Methodists."" In the public mind, therefore, the Nemaha Valley Seminary was a Methodist institution.

Methodists, in fact, were the most active college founders in Nebraska Territory, as they had been on earlier frontiers. Although originally the church had shown little interest in book-learning, by the 1840s Methodists had realized the importance of education." To compete with the traditionally learned churchmen - Congregationalists, Epis­copalians, Presbyterians - Methodism channeled the aggressive dynamism of its evangelical spirit into the founding of educational institutions, particularly on the frontier. Not surprisingly, therefore, the missionary superintendentofN ebraska Territory, the Reverend William H. Goode (1807-79), in March 1855 helped found Nebraska's flrst Methodist college, Simpson University.

A former president of New Albany (Indiana) Seminary, Goode named this Omaha university after his Indiana colleague, Bishop Matthew Simpson. Assisting in the enterprise were other Nebraska Methodist missionaries, leading Omahans, and Dr. Charles Elliott (1792-1869), editor ofthe Western Christian Advocate in Cincinnati. Considered the country's most learned Methodist, Dr. Elliott might have headed the Simpson faculty ifthe university had opened in 1855. Instead, he went to Iowa Wesleyan University at Mount Pleasant as president and pro­fessor of theology."

The cause of Methodist education attracted other churchmen to N e­braska Territory - notably Dr. John Evans (1814-97), a prominent Chicago physician and financier, and Dr. John Dempster (1794-1863), the pioneer of Methodist theological education. Lured by the promise of Nebraska's urban frontier, Evans andsixtaen others (from Chicago, New York City, and Iowa) incorporatad the Oreapolis Company in September 1858 "for the construction of a Town, and the founding of a University, Biblical Institute, and Seminary." Oreapolis at the mouth of the Platte River in Cass County was to be both a railroad center and a center of Methodist education. The town plat reserved thirty acres for a university and ten acres each for a seminary and Biblical institute; one"tenth of the sale of each lot was to be set aside for the university's support 67 In thus providing for endowment, Evans - who in 1851 had founded Northwest­ern University in Evanston, Illinois - showed a foresight unique among Nebraska college founders and attracted verbal support from national church leaders."

Although a speculator in western lands, Evans's commitment to education was apparently sincere. "There is no other cause to which you can more profltably lend your influence, your labor and your means," he once said, "than that of Christian education by aiding in founding a university."69 Thus, atOreapolis Evans founded whathe considered to be

Cities and Colleges 347

"three grand institutions for the good of the church and mankind."10 Also interested in the Oreapolis venture was Dr. John Dempster,

who in 1847 had founded in Concord, New Hampshire, the first Methodist theological seminary. Determined to spread a system of ministerial education across the country, Dempster next founded Gar­rettBiblical Institute in Evanston in 1855. To complete his innovative plan, additional schools were needed in the West: specifically, in Ne­braska and California." Therefore, Dempster Biblical Institute was coup­led to Oreapolis University, as Garrett had been to Northwestern.

The Kansas-Nebraska Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1859 was foresighted enough to endorse Dr. Dempster's efforts and to invite him to join the conference. The 1859 session also officially adopted the three Oreapolis institutions - an action contested by another fledgling school, Olin University at G reggsport, a Nebraska City suburb. "Nebraska City contended for the University with great energy but we came off triumphant," John Evans wrote to his wife. "The Conference adopted all of our Institutions by an almost unanimous vote­Oreapolis is now well established and well advertised as the contest has given us a very general notoriety. "72

Competition thus existed within as well as between denominations. Sectarian rivalry fueled the race to found frontier colleges, but it was coupled with a sincere belief that education would combat the loss of social inhibitions and moral restraints in western cities. Missionaries has­tened to found colleges in territorial Nebraska because they believed what the Reverend Isaac Heaton articulated: "Moral and religious impressions made early in the settlement of a place have the most perma­nent influence."" At the July 27, 1858, cornerstone ceremonies for the Congregational university at Fontanelle, the Reverend Reuben Gay­lord reminded his hearers ofthe importance of their undertaking. "We are gathered here, many of us of New England birth and ancestry, to transplant from the Puritan nursery a young and healthful tree, expecting it to receive that care and culture which will insure its future growth. Our work may seem small; yet, it is foundation work. Some may say we are premature," Gaylord continued, but "we are only acting in concert with the wisest and best minds in all different periods of our country's history ... We have not begun a day too soon. With a deep sense of the importance of our work, we now lay the foundations of an institution for the promotion of Christian education, and for the good of the church and the world.""

Territorial college founding, therefore, was part of the national movements of Protestant evangelism, denominational rivalry, and pop­ular education; it was also part of the trend toward vocational and co­education. What we know of the curricula in Nebraska's territorial colleges seems, at first glance, to have been fundamentally conservative. The Reverend Orasmus Dake, principal of Brownell Hall in 1863 and of

. :;. ... """'-~~-:ci: ~:_:~_ -. ~::lf.lb;~ --- ",.;@i~_,~~_

: .~ ~,->:¥:'1-i ;:~~:;':~:~'-->':Y-~ ~ -.~~-: .~ _ ;-"Ji:-'1J)',¥~~" .,.~- -dfc(.-,-"~ .~'Y::,~"::....~~-:*~4~~ - ,,"';

Bellevue, the seat of Sarpy County, on the west side of the Missouri River, Nebraska Territory. Drawing from Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, June 5,1858.

Cities and Colleges 349

St James' Hall after 1866, saw no educational advantages in either com­mercial courses or modern languages; he taught only classical studies by "long-tried and well-established methods."" Other teachers apparently followed similar pattarns. O.B. Hewitt's Nebraska City High School gave instruction "in all the branches of English and Classical Education, usually taught in High Schools and Academies." Oreapolis Seminary offered Latin and Greek and the traditional higher English branches, as did the Nebraska University at Fontanelle and J.S. Burt's Winter High School in Omaha."

Yet upon closer analysis, Nebraska's territorial colleges were often in tune with mid-19th century currents of change, particularly coeducation and vocational courses. Oberlin (Ohio) Collegiate Institute, which admittad women in 1833, was the nation's first coeducational college; twenty years passed before another institution followed Oberlin's exam­ple. Thereafter, coeducation spread westward. The University of Iowa was opened to both sexes in 1856.77 In January of that year, Omaha's Simpson University amended its charter to prevent sexual segregation. Salem Collegiate Institute (1857), Nebraska University at Fontanelle (1858), Florence Seminary (1860), and the Nebraska City Male and Female College (1861) stated their intent to be coeducational. In prac­tice, other schools taught both sexes- including Oreapolis Seminary, St Benedict's School, and Henry K. Raymond's (c. 1814-88) school in N e­braska City, and St Philip Neri's Academy in Omaha."

Vocational and professional training were other trends apparent in Nebraska's schools. Oreapolis Seminary and Nebraska City's Mathe­matical School and Drawing Academy offered surveying and civil engineering." William Cleburne, a competent geologist and former engineer, lectured in geology at Brownell Hall in 1864; possibly he did the same while teaching at Nebraska University in Fontanelle during the win­ter of 1860-61.80 Henry Raymond's Nebraska City School professed to educate its students "for practical life." Henry E. Brown atN ebraska University and John M. McKenzie, first at the Nemaha Valley Seminary and Normal Institute and then at Peru Seminary, set teacher training as one of their goals." Brownville College operated its medical department between 1858 and 1859, and other professional school proposals included the Nebraska University of the Homeopathic Healing Art and Law Institution at Wyoming and the Omaha Medical University. Simpson University's 1856 charter also provided for colleges of law, medicine, theology and agriculture.82

Feeble as these attampts may seem, the rationale for Nebraska's pioneer educational ventures needs to be put into a national context of educational trends, Protestant evangelism, sectarian rivalry, and the pop­ularization of education. Yet, at the same time, Nebraska's territorial colleges were local institutions. Although some of the founders were national figures, no national agency founded or aided any of these early

350 Nebraska History

schools. The Reverend John M. Ellis (1793-1855) - a Congregational minister and agent of the American Education Society, who had pre­viously founded Illinois College - did come to Nebraska in 1854 to found a college, but he died before fulfilling his dream."

The American Education Society, originally a compact between Con­gregationalists and Presbyterians, gave help only to students, not institutions. The Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West (Western College Society) was established in 1843 to aid schools; but it did not include any Nebraska colleges in its philanthropies until 1871. The American Home Missionary Society, essentially a Congregationalist organization, also did not sponsor any schools, although it sustained several of the clergymen who promoted and directed Nebraska University at Fontanelle. The Methodist General Conference, the church's national body, neither controlled nor founded colleges; its supervisory Board of Education was not formed until 1869. American Baptists had no educational society until 1888. Presbyterians (O.S.) had a Board of Education and its secretary, Dr. Cortlandt Van Rensselaer, showed interest in the University of Nebraska at Saratoga. The agency, however, had no funds to sustain that interest. 54

The private schools of territorial Nebraska were thus founded by men who acted either individually or collectively through local churches and communities. The Arago School, which serviced both the community of Arago and the local Episcopal church, was the conception of the Reverend Stephen Massock (c. 1796-1870)' as St. James Hall was of the Reverend Orasmus Dake. Brownville College was incorporated by local businessmen, and its medical department was staffed in part by local physicians. Johnson Seminary in Tecumseh was incorporated in 1865 by the Johnson County commissioners, and Omadi College (1857) by city fathers and merchants.s,;

Like the Tecumseh and Omadi schools, many of the territorial institutions were promotive - an attempt, at least on paper, to boost the local community. The Quincy, TIlinois, colonists who settled Fontanelle in 1854 were explicit in their hopes that "a college of high literary charac­ter" would increase the value oflocal real estate." Eleven years later the same rationale was used to solicit funds from absentee landowners. If we can put Nebraska University on "something like a permanent basis," the Reverend Lucien A. Jones wrote to Sullivan Searle in Quincy, "your property will be worth many hundreds of dollars more ... and sell quicker .... The church and in fact all things look rather promising here in Fon­tenelle. But the school seems to be the mainspring of the whole.""

Other city fathers veiled their motives in more eloquent rhetoric. What city, state, or nation has ever risen "to honor, intelligence, distinction, or happiness in the absence of the benign influence of education and Chris­tianity?" asked the Brownville Nebraska Advertiser in April 1857 . "To these inseparably we owe our greatness, and without such aid we must

Cities and Colleges 351

sink into imbecility, ignorance, and darkness. Such being a fact, it behooves us to give a small share of our time to the erection of seminaries and churches .... May the time speedily come when the solemn but sweet chiming of church bells will be heard in our midst, and edifices of science and literature be seen in our city!" The editor further insisted that only when Brownville's citizens extended their civic spirit into the erection of schools, churches, hotels, and other public buildings would Brownville rightfully take its place as the Queen City of Nebraska and the West. Brownville citizens responded by erecting a public school building, open­ing the medical department of Brownville College, and offering a college preparatory high school. 88

The importance of a school in boosting both a city's population and economy were, nevertheless, undeniable. Fontanelle - after failing in its bid for territorial capital and losing the county seat- had little else to offer butN ebraska University; yetitwas enough to promptfamily men such as Dr. Luther J. Abbott (1831-1900) and O.P. Clark to move there." Similarly, Omahans felt their schools spoke "more eloquently to the stranger seeking a home in the far West to induce him to locate in Omaha than any other of the public institutions of the city.""

Aware that colleges were conclusive proofs of community stability and refmement, town boosters included educational institutions in their pro­motive propaganda. Stephen F. Nuckolls (1825-79) of Nebraska City, for instance, in 1855 advertised "the future Emporium of Nebraska Territory" as possessing two mercantile establishments, one hotel, forty buildings, a newspaper, two brick churches, and a college that would be erected the following summer.91 The pamphlet John Evans printed to advertise his town-entitled Oreapolis, Nebraska Territory; Its Insti­tutions, Advantages in Site, Etc. Etc. Plan of the Co. for Building up the Town, Inducements vffered to Emigrants to Settle There. Bonus for Manufacturers, Tradesmen, Etc.-made ample mention of the three proposed educational institutions. And the lithographed plat of Brownville, intended no doubt for eastern distribution, included all the assurances of Brownville's cityhood: steam mills, first-class hotels, a bank, newspaper, land office, military company, church, college, and a twice-weekly stage between Kansas, Nebraska City and Omaha." Though colleges were but one of many accouterments of cityhood, they were nevertheless important in local promotion.

The local impetus to found colleges meant that Nebraska's territorial educational enterprises were independent, simultaneous and haphazard Refusal or inability of national church groups and of the territorial government to found schools led to local fragmentation and conflict of interests. Nebraska Presbyterians united in their one effort to found a territorial university, and the Congregational Association of Nebraska gave its sole support to the university in Fontanelle. But generally founders did not coordinate their activities with those of others within their

352 Nebraska History

religious denomination or geographical area. In Cass County, for exam­ple, six institutions between 1856 and 1859 were proposed under the general auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church: Dempster Biblical Institute, Oreapolis Seminary and University, Plattsmouth Preparatory and Collegiate Institute, Rock Bluff Seminary, and Western University at Cassville (Mount Pleasant). Third largest of Nebraska counties, Cass in 1860 hada total population of 3,369. Thirty-five percent (1,163) of its inhabitants were between the ages of five and nineteen; nearly half of that number were emolled in public schools. " Since the median enrollment in 1859 for Methodist colleges and theological seminaries throughout the U.S. was only 161,'" Cass County conceivably could have supplied students for at least one college - but not six.

Financial assistance was even less promising. Although a majority of the fifty-six incorporators of the five legally chartered schools lived in the immediate geographical area, they were middle-aged men of modest means. Of the thirty-seven for whom financial data is available, fifty-nine percent listed their total personalty in the 1860 census as under $1,000. Most had large families; the average size was 6.5 persons. Subsidizing one educational institution during its struggling first years would have been difficult; financing six would have been impossible in a territory whose economy was based more on speculation and outfitting western emigrants than it was on industry and marketable products.

Of the six proposed Cass County institutions, only Oreapolis Seminary opened. "When business enterprises are so hazardous and merchants are discouraged and mechanics are out of employ and the silence of inactivity is scarcely broken, it is refreshing to hear of a new enterprise of so great vitality that a failure is very improbable," com­mented the Plattsmouth Platte Valley Herald on August 8, 186l. "Since the people cannot, in these troublesome times, make fortunes for their children, they should give them an education which is a pat­rimony far more valuable, and which neither the fluctuations of trade nor the pressure of hard times can ever take from them."

Although carefully planned, endorsed by theN ebraska Methodistcon­ference, locally supported, and boosted by a successful entrepreneur like John Evans, the Oreapolis Seminary was short-lived. Why? Evans's pre­vious vision had materialized; an unoccupied farmsite in Illinois had become within three years a thriving suburban educational center with three successfully operating institutions: Northwestern University, Gar­rett Biblical Institute, and Northwestern Female College. Not unreasonably, John Evans had expected Oreapolis to repeat Evanston's pattern of progress.

But Oreapolis had no Mrs. Garrett to provide a cash endowment, no nearby Chicago to provide students and suburban residents, no railroad to stimulate the economy, and ultimately no Evans to direct the enter­prise. In its crucial first years Oreapolis also lacked the community of

Cities and Colleges 353

interests provided by resident landowners. Thougb local boosters later backed Oreapolis Seminary, tbese men were land poor. Nebraska's recovery from tbe Panic of 1857 had been slow, despite tbe stimulus of tbe Pike's Peak gold rush in 1859 and 1860. Cash remained scarce. A dd­ingto Nebraska's financial burden was tbe severe winter of 1861. Unable to reach the St Louis market, "corn went begging on tbe streets at8 and 10, and wheatat25¢ per bushel." Cattle and hogs sold as low as one and one-half cents per pound." "The people oftbis Territory are now passing tbrough severe pecuniary trials," Reuben Gaylord wrote in April 1861. "Many who had become involved, are having tbeir property sold by tbe sheriff under foreclosure. There is but little emigration to tbe Territory ."" Before Nebraska could recover, tbe nation plunged into civil war. Witbits landbased economy, inflated through speculation, and tbe difficulties of converting land into cash, Oreapolis could only suffer. To survive, tbe seminary needed more tban tbe support of local landowners.

The Nebraska Conference oftbe MetbodistEpiscopal Church, though substantial in numbers, could offer little financial assistance; typically, tbe Metbodist itinerant minister appealed to lower economic brackets. Locally, fund raising was often difficult, as tbe Reverend J. G. Miller, principal of Oreapolis Seminary, discovered when he attemptad to solicit from a Plattsmoutb saloon. "Te Metodist, te Metodist church, eh?" res­ponded tbe saloonkeeper. "Te Metodist dey drink no beer; dey drink no whisky; dey play no billiards. T __ m de Metodistchurch, Me give tern no cent"97

For a new school to waver financially was not uncommon. Northwes­tern University in Evanston, despite its ample endowment, found itself in constant financial difficulties. But because of John Evans's leadership and repeated generosity, it recovered. 98 In contrast, Oreapolis after 1861 no longer had Evans's support Thwarted in his efforts to secure tbe governorship ofN ebraska Territory ," Evans went instead as governor to Colorado Territory in January 1861. Into tbe new town of Denver he poured his energies, boosting railroads, churches, and tbe Colorado Seminary (Denver University). Like many other boosters, Evans needed tbe reinforcement of quick success. He transferred his loyalties from Oreapolis to Denver because tbe promise of Nebraska Territory had faded: "They were so long building," he later explained. lOo

Promoters like John Evans did not, as individuals, have a lasting impact upon Nebraska. Yet as a group these transients were importsnt. They speculated in lands and corporations, enacted legislation, platted town sites, operated ferries and sawmills, built hotels, encouraged settle­ment, multiplied churches and colleges, and perhaps lea tbeir name behind on a town or creek. Buttbey also leaa succession offailures: ghost towns, deserted enterprises, paper promises. Had tbey remained in N e­braska, tbey would have become useful citizens and community leaders­faces in tbe county "mug-book" histories. Whetbertransientorresident,

354 Nebraska History

these pioneer promoters shared a common optimism, an optimism as unbounded as the land they settled. "I am working hard here and deserve success," wrote William Larimer from La Platte City in 1855. If success should never come, "I will live in hopes if I should die in despair."IOI

Transient boosters and transferred loyalties were certainly a factor in the demise of such grand enterprises as Oreapolis and its three Methodist schools. But, ultimately, the high mortality rate of Nebras­ka's territorial colleges must be attributed to localism and the excessive number of attempted schools. Throughout Victorian America, educational institutions far exceeded local demand. Some contemporary observers decried "the multiplicity of titled shams," '02 but others found virtue innumbers. "It is one of the glories of American colleges," insisted Theron Baldwin (1801-70), a Congregational mis­sionary and secretary of the Western College Society, "that they are not concentrated into one vast University, but scattered far and wide among the people; each one filling its sphere, availing itself of local associations and local sympathies, and standing up there as the visible and ever present representative of liberal and Christian learning."lo3

By 1850 the U.S. had become not just a land of colleges but' of neighborhood colleges. "We have multiplied colleges so as to place them at every man's door," boasted Henry Tappan (1805-81), a Con­gregational clergyman and prominent educator. ,o. The problem was that every man did not, or could not, support higher education. Many Americans seemed to think that colleges, once planted, would take care of themselves. Perhaps the reluctance to support education with more than rhetoric was rooted in American materialism. People has­tened west to acquire land, wealth, and prominence. Towns were laid out, roads chartered, bridges projected, and colleges founded, as the Reverend Isaac Heaton admitted, "for personal advantage - almost literally supposing that gain is godliness."w,

Not even clergymen were immune to worldly temptations. William Armstrong (b. 1818), a Methodist minister who speculated in Iowa and Nebraska, was on the board of directors of the Loudon (Iowa) Town Company, boosted the Council Bluffs and St. Joseph Railroad, and in 1860 went to the Colorado gold mines. Far from the image of the impoverished circuit rider, Armstrong in the 1860 census valued his real estate at $12,500 and personal estate at $7,500. Another Methodist, the Reverend Moses F. Shinn (1809-85), was frequently tempted by western abundance: land claims, ferry crossings, and liq­uor. The Reverend William Young Brown, a Presbyterian clergyman, gave up his ministry during his Nebraska sojourn so he could speculate in lands and banks. Yet these three men were all college incorporators. lo6 However sincere their intentions to serve God

Fremont College (leftJ, chartered in 1869, was housed in a structure builtin 1866 as an Episcopal boys' academy. The other building in the photograph is a church erected in 1867. Courtesy of St. James Episcopal Church, Fremont.

Isaac Heaton, one althe incorporators of Nebraska University at Fontanelle in 1858. Courtesy of First Con­gregational Church, U C. c., Fre­mont.

356 Nebraska History

and community, they - and others like them - sought first to serve themselves.

To assume fhat Armstrong, Brown, and Shinn were typical of territorial Nebraska clergymen, however, would be erroneous. Most of fhe missionaries who so zealously promoted frontier colleges were unable to financially support fheir institutions. The Reverend Lucien Jones, pas­tor of Fontanelle's Congregational Church, in the winter of 1865-66 had but one pair of trousers, boots with a rat-sized hole, no overcoat or outer garment except an old cloak wifhout a lining, and neifher mittens nor gloves. "My circumstances are not much below fhe average of my church," Jones explained to fhe American Home Missionary Society.'07 Faced with rebuilding the burned Nebraska University building, the Fontanelle Congregationalists would have to endure great privations. Yet, the executive committee of Nebraska University's board felt "fully assured by the manifestations constantly visible that with this community educational advantages, civilization and general intelligence are of more importance than all the luxuries oflife without these higher employments."los

Fontanelle's commitment to education was strong enough to keep Ne­braska University's doors open until 1872 - in spite of hard times, Indian scares, fire, wind, and factionalism within fhe church and school. But even though residents, in their own words, Hsacrificed temporal comforts for educational benefits- in a perrnanentcollege,"109 bofh fhe city and fhe university eventually were victims oflocalism. Nearby Fremont took fhe county seat and secured fhe railroad; in June 1869 fhe Congregational Association of Nebraska wifhdrew its support from Nebraska U niversi­ty, giving it instead to Doane College in Crete. 'lO

The men who founded Fontanelle, and fhe many other towns of territorial Nebraska had been lured by the promise of abundant land, transcontinental railroads, and a quick return on urban investments. They created upstart, competitive cities patterned after eastern set­tlements and populated by businessmen-boosters, missionaries, and families - all of whom had a vested interest in founding schools. Businessmen viewed colleges in promotive terms, as a means of advertis~ ing a city's permanency, stability, and refinement and thereby attracting settlers and raising property values. Missionaries and other churchmen founded colleges in order to halt the barbarizing process of the frontier, to secure their own denominational interests, and to guide young people along a Christian path. And married settlers wanted colleges in their community because they sought continuity, stability, and a better life for their children.

The result was an excessive number of local educational institutions and a high mortality rate. Town promoters and churchmen, caught up in fhe exuberant optimism and restless ambition of fhe age in which they lived, seldom paused to reflect upon fhe pastorto plan realistically for the

Cities and Colleges 357

future. 0 btaining articles of incorporation, reserving lots in a ciry pla~ or releasing promotive press notices was not enough to insure a college's success.

The excessive multiplication of colleges and low survival rate were not just characteristic ofN ebraska Territory; they were national phenomena. According to Theron Baldwin, if a headstone had been erected for each dead college, a traveler in mid-19th century America would have found himself within an apparently limitless burial ground '" After studying session laws in sixteen states, historian Donald Tewksbury found 516 institutions incorporatad before the Civil War, 412 of which were mere skeletons by 1927 (the dste of his study).'" Based on the session laws alone, territorial Nebraska incorporated twenry-tluee colleges, only one of which still functioned in 1986. When one goes beyond the session laws, the number of church and communiry colleges, seminaries and academies in territorial Nebraska more than doubles. The example of Nebraska therefore suggests that Tewksbury's statistics are low. Adding the thirt;y unincorporated schools to the list oftwenry-tluee charters does not alter the conclusion that the death rate for antebellum colleges was high; only Brownell-Talbot in Omaha (founded 1863) and Peru State College (chartered 1860) can today trace their origins to Nebraska's territorial period.

Nebraska's first frontier was both urban and ruraL Its cities were shaped by national concerns-the Pacific Railroad, the Panic of1857, the Pike's Peak gold rush, and the Civil War. That so many of these embryo cities wanted their own colleges was the resultoflocal boosterism as well as national trends that coalesced in the mid-1850s: the popularization of education, Protestant evangelism, and denominational rivalry. Less re­strained by past traditions, the Nebraska schools also showed a tendency to embrace the 19th-century trends of coeducation and vocational courses.

Although part of the West, territorial Nebraska did not sever its eastern ties. It was not the frontier of trapper and fur trader; nor was it the "Wild West" of cattle drives, miners, and desperadoes. Nebraska was first settled by the speculator, the town builder, the missionary, and the family man. The story of each individual and community is un­ique. Yet patterns were established that would shape the years of statehood: boosterism, competitiveness, the preeminence of certain eastern Nebraska towns, local interest in higher education, and faded promises.

358 Nebraska History

APPENDIX

The following list of territorial Nebraska private schools is more indicative than inclusive. The intent has been three-fold: to show the extent of church involvement in educational proposals, the eagerness of communities to possess academic institutions of "higher learning," and the lack of precision in using tenns such as "college," Therefore, the list has attempted to include all church­related schools wherever a denominational connection seemed plausible, all community proposals for institutions of higher education, and all schools using the title of university, college, seminary or academy, Sources have been the ses­sion laws, legislative journals, newspapers, county and church histories, and biographies of founders and incorporators. Operational dates have been given whenever possible.

ACADEMY OF THE ANNUNCIATION, Nebraska City, Otoe County Opened 1856 Type: Parochial Founders: Benedictine sisters Rationale: Catholic education for girls

ALL-SOULS COLLEG E, Bellevue, Sarpy County Incorporated 1864 Type: Church-related Founders: Pastor, wardens, members of local Episcopal churches Rationale: General education under Episcopalian auspices

ARAGO SCHOOL, Arago, Richardson County Opened 1860 Type: Parochial Founders: The Reverend Dr. Stephen Massock, local Episcopalian priest Rationale: 1) Episcopalian education; 2) adult education, particularly for GerM

man immigrants

BROWNELL HALL, Saratoga, Douglas County Opened 1863; moved to Omaha 1868; continues as BrownellMTalbot Type: Parochial Founders: Episcopalian bishop and clergy Rationale: Classical academy education for girls under Episcopalian auspices

BROWNVILLE COLLEGE, Brownville, Nemaha County Incorporated 1857; medicallecrures given, 1858-59 Type: Liberal arts college with medical department Founders: Brownville businessmen, church leaders, physicians Rationale: 1) general education; 2) medical training; 3) community service

through public lectures; 4) community promotion

BROWNVILLE HIGH SCHOOL, Brownville, Nemaha County Opened 1859

Cities and Colleges 359

Type: Community secondary school Founders: The ReverendT.W. Tipton, Congregational minister and president of

Brownville College Rationale: 1) to prepare students for entrance in Brownville College; 2) to pro­

vide free secondary education for residents of Brownville school district; 3) to provide secondary education and boarding accommodations for non­residents at a "moderate fee"

DAKOTA CITY COLLEGIATE AND PREPARATORY INSTITUTE, Dakota City, Dakota County

Incorporated 1857 Type: Community secondary school Founders: Dakota City speculators, Omaha businessmen, and local Catholic

priest Rationale: 1) general Christian education; 2) community promotion

DEMPSTER BIBLICAL INSTITUTE, Oreapolis, Cass County Bill to incorporate introduced, Council, 1858; adopted by Kansas-Nebraska

Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church, 1859 Type: Theological seminary Founders: Dr. John Dempster of Garrett Biblical Institute and Dr. John Evans,

founder of Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois Rationale: Education of Methodist ministers for the Missouri valley

DEWITT COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE, DeWitt, Cuming County Bill to incorporate introduced, House, 1857 Type: Community secondary school; possibly church-related Founders: The Reverend J. W. Taggart, Baptist minister Rationale: Promotion of community and possibly Baptist church

FACTORYVILLE FEMALE SEMINARY, Factoryville, Cass County Opened 1866 Type: Church-related Founders: Mrs. Nichols Rationale: Female education under general auspices of Methodist Episcopal

Church

FALLS CITY COLLEGE, Falls City, Richardson County Bill to incorporate passed House, 1858 Type: Community college Rationale: Community promotion

FLORENCE SEMINARY, Florence, Douglas County Incorporated 1860 Type: Liberal arts college Founders: Florence businessmen Rationale: 1) general Christian education for both sexes; 2) community

promotion

360 Nebraska History

JOHNSON SEMINARY, Tecumseh, Johnson County Incorporated 1865 Type: Tax-supported secondary school Founders: Johnson County commissioners Rationale: General education

LAN CA STER SEMIN A RY, Lancaster, Lancaster County Proposed 1863; open 1866-67 Type: Church-related elementary and possibly secondary school Founders: The Reverend J,M. Young and Methodist Protestant colony Rationale: Religious education for both sexes under auspices of Methodist Pro-

testant Church

LEWIS AND CLARK COLLEG E, Washington County Joint resolution passed House, 1858 Type: Speculative Founders: P.G. Cooper, Cuming City speculator Rationale: To obtain federal land grant

MATHEMATICAL SCHOOL AND DRAWING ACADEMY, Nebraska City, Otoe County

Opened 1857 Type: Vocational school Founders: Augustus F. and William E. Harvey Rationale: To train civil engineers

NEBRASKA CITY COLLEGIATE AND PREPARATORY INSTITUTE, Nebraska City, Otoe County

Incorporated 1855 Type: Community secondary school Founders: Three local men, two of whom were directors of Nebraska City and

Pacific Railroad Company Rationale: 1) General non~denominational education; 2) community

promotion

NEBRASKA CITY FEMALE SEMINARY, Nebraska City, Otoe County Open 1861-63 Type: Elementary School Founders: B,W, Vineyard Rationale: Academy education for girls

NEBRASKA CITY HIGH SCHOOL, Nebraska City, Otoe County Opened 1857 Type: Classical academy and seminary Founders: O,B, Hewitt Rationale: Classical education on upper elementary and secondary level

NEBRASKA CITY HIGH SCHOOL, Nebraska City, Otoe County Opened 1862

Cities and Colleges

Type: Church*related secondary school Founders: The Reverend Douthett and daughter, Sallie Rationale: Secondary education under Presbyterian auspices

361

NEBRASKA CITY SELECT HIGH SCHOOL, Nebraska Ci1l/, Otoe County

Opened 1865 Type: Church-related secondary school Founders: The Reverend D.A. Cline Rationale: Secondary and musical education under general auspices of

Methodist Protestant Church

NEBRASKA UNIVERSITY, Fontanelle, Washington Coun1l/ Incorporated 1855; charter revised 1858; operated 1856-72 Type: Church-related elementary and secondary school (college courses

projected) Founders: Nebraska Colonization Company, territorial officials, Baptists Rationale: 1) To promote personal and political ideas ofN ebraska Colonization

Company; 2) to found the territorial (and future state) university ofNebras­ka; 3) to promote denominational interests of Baptist Church; after 1858: to provide Christian education under auspices of the Congregational Associa­tion of Nebraska

NEBRASKA UNIVERSITY OF THE HOMEOPATHIC HEALING ART AND LAW INSTITUTION, Wyoming, Otoe Coun1l/

Bill to incorporate introduced, Council, 1857 Type: Professional Rationale: 1) Professional legal training; 2) medical training according to system

of Samuel Hahuemanu, founder of homeopathy

NEMAHA UNIVERSITY, Archer, Richardson Coun1l/ Incorporated 1856 Type: Church-related Founders: Area businessmen and fanners, a local Methodistminister, and prom­

inent Methodist laymen Rationale: 1) Education under general auspices of Methodist Episcopal Church;

2) community promotion

NEMAHA VALLEY SEMINARY AND NORMAL INSTITUTE, Pawnee City, Pawnee County

Incorporated 1864; Operated 1863-66 Type: Church-related liberal arts college with education department Founders: Pawnee City businessmen and local Methodists Rationale: 1) Moral and intellectual training under MethodistEpiscopal Church

auspices; 2) teacher training

OLIN UNIVERSITY, Greggsport, Otoe Coun1l/ Proposed 1859 Type: Church-related

362 Nebraska History

Founders: Local Methodists Rationale: General education under auspices of Methodist Episcopal Church

OMADI COLLEGE, Omadi, Dakota County Incorporated 1857 Type: Community college Founders: City fathers and merchants Rationale: 1) General education; 2) community promotion

OMAHA MEDICAL UNIVERSITY AND MARINE HOSPITAL, Omaha, Douglas County

Bill to incorporate introduced, House, 1857 Type: Professional Rationale: Medical training

OMAHA SEMINARY, Omaha, Douglas County Opened 1856 Type: Secondary school Founders: Laura and Helen Mar LeSeur, Methodist laywomen Rationale: Comprehensive Christian education

OMAHA SELECT SCHOOL, Omaha, Douglas County Opened 1857 Type: Elementary and secondary school Founders: Mrs. A.M. Smith, Congregational laywoman Rationale: General education

OMAHA WINTER HIG H SCHOOL, Omaha, Douglas County Open 1857-59 Type: Church~related elementary and secondary school Founders: J.S. Burt, licentiate of Illinois Congregational Association Rationale: Classical elementary and secondary education under general aus-

pices of Congregational and Presbyterian churches

OREAPOLlS SEMINARY, Oreapolis, Cass County Incorporated 1858; adopted by Kansas-Nebraska Conference, Methodist Epis­

copal Church, 1859; operated 1861-c. 1864 Type: Church-related elementary and secondary school Founders: Area businessmen and Methodist clergy; Dr. John Evans of

Chicago Rationale: 1) General elementary and secondaxy education under auspices

of Methodist Episcopal Church; 2) vocational training (teaching, surveying, civil engineering); 3) to nrpnare students for Oreapoli<.l. University

OREAPOLlS UNIVERSITY (CASS COUNTY UNIVERSITY), Oreapolis, Cass County

Incorporated 1858; adopted by Kansas-Nebraska Conference, Methodist Epis­copal Church, 1859; Charter amended 1861

Type: Church-related

Cities and Colleges 363

Founders: Area businessmen and speculators; Methodist clergy; Dr. John Evans of Chicago

Rationale: 1) To provide general education under auspices of Methodist Epis­copal Church; 2) to become a center of Methodism in the West

PERU SEMINARY (MOUNT VERNON SEMINARY), Peru, Nemaha County

Incorporated 1860; opened 1866; 1867 given to state as Peru Normal School; continues as Peru State College

Type: Church-related; after 1867: state supported teachers' college Founders: Methodist clergy and laymen; area businessmen Rationale: 1) General coeducation ·under general auspices of Methodist Epis­

copal Church; 2) teacher training

PLATTSMOUTH PREPARATORY AND COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE, Plattsmouth, Cass County

Incorporated 1856; charter amended 1857 Type: Church-related community school Founders: City fathers; local fanners, merchants, and Methodist leaders Rationale: 1) Secondary education under general auspices of Methodist Epis-

copal Church; 2) community promotion

ROCK BLUFF SEMINARY, Rock Bluff, Cass County Incorporated 1857 Type: Church-related community school Founders: City fathers and commissioners of Missouri River and Pacific

Railroad Company; Methodist clergy Rationale: 1) Secondary education under general auspices of Methodist EpisM

copal Church; 2) community promotion

ST. BENEDICT'S SCHOOL FOR MALES AND FEMALES, Nebraska City, Otoe County

Opened 1862 Type: Parochial Founders: The Reverend Emanuel Hartig, local Catholic priest Rationale: Catholic education with training in "manners, arts and sciences"

ST. JAMES HALL (FREMONT COLLEG E), Fremon~ Dodge County Operated 1866-70; incorporated 1869 as Fremont College . Type: Parochial Pounders: The Reverend Orasmus C. Dake, rector of St. James' Episcopal

Church, and Bishop Clarkson Rationale: 1) To provide classical education for boys under auspices of ProtesM

tantEpiscopal Church; 2) to "meetthewants of the country"; 3) to become a "literary centre of wide repute"

ST. MARY'S. ACADEMY (OLD HOLY ANGEL SCHOOL), Omaha, Douglas County

Operated c. 1857-64, 1864-76

364 Nebraska History

Type: Parochial boarding school Founders: Catholic laywomen; after 1864: Sisters of Mercy Rationale: 1) To provide popular education for Catholic women; 2) to compete

with rival female seminaries (Episcopal and Presbyterian); after 1868: education extended to males

ST. MARY'S FEMALE ACADEMY, SI. John's, Dakota County Incorporated 1857 Type: Parochial Founders: Catholic sisters, possibly Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin

Mary Rationale: Catholic education for girls

ST. PHILIP NERl'S ACADEMY, Omaha, Douglas County Opened 1863 Type: Parochial Founders: Catholic laymen Rationale: Catholic education for both sexes

SALEM COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE, Salem, Richardson County Incorporated 1857 Type: Community liberal arts college Founders: City fathers and local merchants; directors of Missouri River and

Nemaha Valley Railroad Company Rationale: 1) To provide coeducation of "highest class"; 2) to instruct in "the

Christian faith and morality of the sacred scriptures"; 3) to promote the arts and sciences; 4) to promote the town of Salem

SIMPSON UNIVERSITY, Omaha, Douglas County Incorporated 1855; charter amended 1856; adopted by Kansas-N ebraska Con­

ference of the Methodist Episcopal Church 1856 Type: Church-related Founders: Methodist clergy from Nebraska Territory and Iowa; prominent

Omaha businessmen Rationale: 1) General secondary and collegiate coeducation under auspices of

Methodist Episcopal Church; 2) community promotion; 3) to provide pro­fessional training (law, medicine, theology, agriculture)

SODOM COLLEG E, Elmwood, Cass County Opened 1866 Type: Elementary subscription school Founders: Mary Rhea Rationale: General elementary education

TABLE ROCK SEMINARY, Table Rock, Pawnee County Incorporated 7th legislative session 1860, vetoed by governor Type: Church-related Founders: The Reverend Charles W. Giddings and Nebraska Settlement

Company

Cities and Colleges 365

Rationale: 1) General education under auspicesofMethodistEpiscopal Church; 2) community promotion

TALBOT HALL (NEBRASKA COLLEG E AND DIVINITY SCHOOL), Nebraska City, Otoe County

Operated 1866-85; incorporated 1868 as Nebraska College and Divinity School

Type: Parochial school for boys, with divinity departmen~ after 1868: college and theological seminary

Founders: Bishop Robert H. Clarkson and Diocesan clergy of Protestant Epi8~ copal Church

Rationale: Classical and theological education under auspices of Protestant Episcopal Church

UNIVERSITY OF COLUMBUS, Columbus, Platte County Incorporated 1860 Type: Church-related Founders: Bishop James O'Gonnan and the other Catholic priests in Nebraska

Territory; Catholic laymen Rationale: Catholic education

UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA AT SARATOGA, Saratoga, Douglas County

Incorporated 1857 Type: Church-related Founders: Educational leaders of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. (0. S.); area

Presbyterian clergy and businessmen Rationale: 1) General education under auspices of Presbyterian Church.

U.S.A.; 2) commnnity promotion

UNIVERSITY OF ST. JOHN, St. John's, Dakota County Incorporated 1857 Type: Church-related Founders: Local Catholic clergy and laymen Rationale: 1) Catholic education; 2) promotion of an Irish Catholic colony

WASHINGTON COLLEGE, Cuming City, Washington County Incorporated 1856 Type: Communiiy college Founders: Territorial officials and speculators Rationale: Communiw promotion

WESTERN UNIVERSITY, Cassville (Mt Pleasant), Cass County Incorporated 1856 Type: Church-related Founders: Local fanners and M ethorust laymen; Methodistminister, William D.

Gage Rationale: Education under general auspices of Methodist Episcopal Church

366 Nebraska History

WYOMING COLLEGE, Wyoming, Otoe County Bill to incorporate introduced, 4th legislative session, 1857~58 Type: Community college Rationale: CommuniW promotion

YOUNG LADIES' ACADEMY, Omaha, Douglas County Opened 1857 Type: Elementary and secondary school Founders: Miss Werde Rationale: General education for girls, including modern languages and music

NOTES

lOmahaNebraskian, March26, 1856; "WestwardHol" ChristianAdvocateandJour­nal (New York), 32 (June 11, 1857): 95; Caroline Morton to Emma Morton, November 18, 1854, J. Sterling Morton Collection, Nebraska State Historical Society. Hereafter the State Historical Society will be cited as NSHS.

2N ebraska, Territorial Legislature, House Journal, 2d 8ess., 1856, 18; "The Pacific Railway," Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review (New York), 35 (December 1856): 659; "Nebraska," [Emerson 's1 United States Magazine (N ew York), 3 (September 1856):309-11.

30mahaNebraskian, June 10, 1857, 4Nebraska, Laws, Resolutions and Memorials Passed at the Sessions of the Territorial

and State Legislatures, 1855-56, 155-56, 159, 201, 208-09, 316-17; AT, Andreas, His­tory of the State of Nebraska. . (Chicago: W estern Historical Co" 1882), 481-88; J. Ster­ling Morton and Albert Watkins, Illustrated History of Nebraska, 3 vols. (Lincoln, Nebr.: Jacob North & Company, 1905-13), 1:195, 216-19.

sLaws, 1855,152·53. See also, Erling A. Erickson, Banking in Frontier Iowa, 1836-1865 (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1971).

6Laws, 1855-58,159-60,165-66,201-02,414-16,604-05; Florence Land Company, Minutes and Misc. Stock Certificates, NSHS; Pacific City (Iowa) Herald, March 24, 1859;Nebraska City News, January 17, 1857; T.S. Parvin, "Thomas Hart Benton, Jr.," Iowa Historical Record, 16 (January 1900): 1-14.

7Mortonand Watkins, History, 1:217; U.S. Bureau of the Census,Eighth Census of the United States, 1860: Population, Nebraska; Laws, 1855·57, 155-56, 207,305, 404-07) 420; Andreas, History, 1138,1141, 1144-46; Brownville Nebraska Advertiser, August 16

8 and December 25,1856; ibid.) June 25, 1857, and February 25, 1858.

Council Bluffs (Iowa) Bugle, August 8, 1860. sLaws, 1855-60,154·55, 158-59,205-08,288,669-70; Florence Bridge Company,

Stock Book, and James C. Mitchell, undated property list, Florence Collection, NSHS; Hannah Beals, "The Mitchell House of Florence," inFounders and Patriots of Nebraska, edited by Mrs. Charles H. Mullin, et a1. (Omaha, Nebr., 1935), 77.

IOOmaha Nebraskian, July 23, 1856; Morton and Watkins, History, 1:280. llLaws, 1855-57,206-07,308·10,453-54; Mitchell, Property list; Columbus Town

Company, Minutes, 1856, Columbus Town Records, Vo!.l, NSHS;Nebraska City News, January 12, 1857. For map, see C. Chaucer Goss, Bellevue, Larimer and Saint Mary (Bellevue, Nebr., 1859).

120maha Nebraskian, March 19, 1856; Nebraska City News, February 26, 1857. 13John A. MacMurphy, "Partofthe Making of a GreatState," NSHS,Proceedings and

Collections, 2nd ser., 1 (July 1894):4-5. 14House Journal, 3rd sess., 1857,50. 15For a list of charters see Addison E. Sheldon and William E. Hannan, Nebraska

Cities and Colleges 367

Municipalities (Lincoln, Nebr.: Nebraska Legislative Reference Bureau, 1914), 7-8. i6Josephine M. Jelen, "Towns and Townsites in Territorial Nebr" 1854-1867" (M.A.

thesis, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, 1934), 116-25. J'William Huse, History 0/ Dixon County (Norfolk, Nebr.: Press of Daily News, 1896),

26-27; Brownville Nebraska Advertiser, April 23, 1857. is John T. Bell,HistoryofWashington County (Omaha, Nebr.: Herald Steam Book and

Job Printing House, 1876),46. 19W iIliam Larimer to Thomas Mellon, La Platte City !Nebr. TerritOlY], May 31, 1855,

in Reminiscences of General William Larimer and His Son William H.H. Larimer, edited by Herman S. Davis (Lancaster, Pa., 1918), 20.

~() A.S.M. Morgan, La Platte, 1847, NSHS Map Collection; Omaha Nebraskian, April 30, 1856; "Letter from Iowa," May 24, 1855, in Independent (New York), 7 (July 5, 1855),210.

~ISee C.W. Shreve, Larimer City, 1857, NSHS Map Collection, and Goss, Bellevue, Larimer. The present town of La Platte in Sarpy County dates from 1870 and includes a portion of the original Larimer town site, according to Stephen D. Bangs, Centennial His­tory of Sarpy County (Papillion, Nebr.: Times Print, 1876).

~~Laws, 1855-56,209-10,289; Wyoming (Nebr.) Post, April 3 and 10, 1858; ibid., May 1,1858; Wyoming (Nebr.) Telescope, September 3 and 10,1857. ~:IWyoming(Nebr.} Telescope, April 9, 1859; HelenR. Williams, "Old Wyoming," Ne­

braska History, 17 (April-June, 1936): 79-90. '1.4 Christian Advocate and Journal (New York), 41 (May 31, 1866):172. ~"Florence (Nebr.) Courier, March 12,1857; Omaha Nebraskian, March 19,1856;

Bellevue Nebraska Palladium, July 15, 1854; S. W. Y. Schimonsky, A Plat of the City of Bellevue, N. T. (C. ClU'riers, Lithographer, 1859), NSHS Map Collection; Wyoming (Nebr.) Post, April 10, 1858; Wyoming (Nebr.) Telescope, April 9, 1859; BrownvilleNe­braska Advertiser, June 7, 1856; Nebraska City News, November 28, 1857; March 17, 1860.

~r,Eighth Census, 1860. ~7Reuben Gaylord to Milton Badger, Omaha, May 6, 1856, American Home Mis­

sionary Society, Nebraska Letters #5, NSHS, microfilm copies. Hereafter the American Home Missionary Society will be cited as AHMS.

1~Btownville Nebraska Advertiser, Novembet I, 1856; "Salt and Salt Springs in Ne­btaska," Hunt's Merchants' Magazine (New York), 41 (July, 1859):126.

19W i1helm Stolley, Geschichte der ErstenAnsiedlung von Hall County inNebrasha von 1857 mit Anhang bis zum Jahre 1907 (Grand Island, Nebr., 1907). The present city of Grand Island was laid outin 1866 by the Union Pacific Railroad and covered only a small part of the spacious 1440-acre tractofthe original town. See Esther Bienhoff, "The Original German Settlement at G rand Island Nebraska (1857 -1866)" (M.A. thesis, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, 1929).

:IOE[meline] R[ichardsonl Kline to Amanda Dake Fontanelle, {Nebr.], August 16, 1872, Orasmus C. Dake Papers, NSHS.

:11 A lfred Sorenson, History of Omaha . .. , 3rd ed. (Omaha: National Printing Company, 1923), 105; Orasmus Dake to IH.K. Eaton!, Omaha, December 26, 1864, Dake P~.gers .

. Brownville Nebraska Advertiser, March 19, 1857. See also, Addison E. Sheldon, "Solitary Ghosts," Nebraska History, 18 (July/September, 1937):190, and Berlin B. Chapman, "The Nemaha Half-Breed Reservation," Nebraska History, 38 (March, 1957): 1-24. Archer in Richardson County soon became a ghost town; the present town of Archer is in Merrick County.

3'~"Letter from S.F. Nuckolls, Salt Lake City, Utah, June 10, 1874. To Maj. J. W. Pear­man, President Old Settlers' Association," NSHS, Transactions and Reports, 1 (1885):34. The accuracy of Nuckolls's reminiscence seems indicated by a property list in the Wyoming (Nebr.) Telescope, March 5, 1859. S.F.Nuckolls, Nebraska City'sprincipal

368 Nebraska History

investor-booster, had the third largest property valuation ($10,415); his brothers Heath, Houston and Lafayette also owned Wyoming property.

:l4Francis Dischner, "Historical Sketches of Mid-Nebraska," in Eugene Hagedorn, The Franciscans in Nebraska (Norfolk, Nebr.: Norfolk Daily News, 1931), 28-29, 53-54. Pawnee City in Platte County, whose only claim to dtyhood seems to have been the Elkhorn and Loup Fork Bridge and Ferry Company (formed by the Florence entrepreneur, James C. Mitchell), adjoined Columbus. The present-day Pawnee City is in Pawnee County .

. 1iiJ. Sterling Morton, "Speech DeliveredatFirst Territorial Fair," September 21, 1859,

in Nebraska, State Board of Agriculture, Report, 1860,40, 36W illiam Larimer, for instance, brought a prefabricated house from Pittsburgh. For

illustrations of ready-made houses available from a Chicago rtnn, see Keith Wheeler, The Old West: The Townsmen (New York: Time-Life Books, 1975), 28-29.

3'Thomas Morton, Sketch of Nebraska City, . (Nebraska Cif¥: Thos. Morton & Co,, 1858).

3 Andreas, History, 1204-05; Nebraska City News, April 15, December 5,12,1857; Raymond E. Dale, "Otoe County Pioneers, A Biographical Dictionary," NSHS, Type­script, 1961.

39Eighth CensU$, 1860. The next largest towns were Omaha (1,883), Bellevue (929), Salem (694), Plattsmouth (474). Falls CilY (473), and Brownville (425). Returns, however, were incomplete and some towns are not listed in the 1860 census,

4oMoilie Dorsey Sanford, Mollie: The Journal of Mollie Dorsey Sanford in Nebraska and Colorado Territories, 1857-1866, edited by DonaldDanker (Lincoln, Nebr.: Univer­sity of Nebraska Press, 1959),2,12-17,36·37,76.

4°Quoted in Louis B. Wright, Culture on the Moving Frontier (New York: Harper & Row, 1955; Harper Torchbooks, 1961), 178.

"Laws, 1855-65, 165-69, 303-04, 308-10, 314-17,403-10, 416-18, 604-05, 668-70, 942-44,955-56; Nebraska, Territorial Legislature, Council Journal, 3rd sess., 1857,86, 92; idem., 4th sess., 1857-58, 117-18; idem., 5th sess., 1858, 213, 221, 233, 247; idem., 6th sess., 1859-60, 49; idem., 7th sess., 1860-61, 189-91;HouseJournal, 3rd sess., 1857, 165; idem., 4th sess., 1857-58, 96; idem., 5th sess., 1858, 187, 213, 233.

43HouseJournal, 3rdsess., 1857, 165, 188; idem., 4th sess., 1857-58, 124; Council Journal, 4th sess., 1857-58, 117-18; idem., 7th sess., 1860-61, 189-91.

HLaws, 1865,995·96. 45Laws, 1857,418. 46See, for example, Laws, 1855,165. 4'Laws, 1857,408, 48See Howard M. Caldwell, Education in Nebraska (Washington, D.C.: Government

Printing Ofrtce, 1902), and Walter K. Beggs, "Frontier Education in Nebraska" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, 1939),

49Edward F. Bornemeier, "History of Sodom and Community," Elmwood (Nebr.) Leader-Echo, September 25, 1941; Beggs, "Frontier Education," 158; Andreas, History, 1206. '

50 Brownville Nebraska Advertiser, October 31,1861, and April 2, 1863;Laws, 1859· 64,669-70,943-44; Omaha Nebraskian, October 1, 1856, and April 22, 1857.

51"Our Education," Christian Advocate and Journal (New York), 31 (September 11, 1856);37.

52Lawrence A. Cremin, American Education: The Colonial Experience, 1607~1783 (New York: Harper & Row, 1970),561.

53'Thomas B. Cuming, "Opening Message to the First Session of the Legislative Assembly," January 16, 1855, Council Journal, 1st sess., 1855, 1l.

54Donald G. Tewksbury, The Founding of American Colleges and Universities before the Civil War (New York: Columbia University, Teachers College, Bureau of Publications, 1932), 16-17, 28.

Cities and Colleges 369

;)"'Isaac E. Heaton to Milton Badger, Fremont, N.T., AprilS, 1861, AHMS,Nebraska Letters #96.

56 Richard S. Storts, Jr., Colleges, a Power of Civilization to be Used for Christ, Dis­course before the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West, Providence, R.I., October 30,1855 (New York: N.A. Calkins, 1856), 20.

"Laws, 1855-60,286-87,604-05,668. 5sLaws, 1859·60,669; Hagedom,Franciscans, 196·97,202-03; Morton and Watkins,

History, 1:322-23,607-08, and2:458-59; Sr. M. AquinataMartin, The Catholic Church on the Nebraska Frontier (1854-1885) (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1937), 56·57; Andreas, History, 731; Eighth Census, 1860.

,'>9Laws, 1864.942-43; Andreas, History, 724, 1367;Biographical8ketches of Leading Citizens o/Saunders and Sarpy Counties, Nebraska (Chicago: Biographical :Publishing Co., 1900), 151-52; James W. Savage and John T. Bell, HiJJrory of the Cil;y of Omaha Ne­braska (New York: Munsell & Company, 1894),318; James Robbins, "Foundations of the Episcopal Church in Omaha, 1856-1964 (M.A. thesis, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 1965),28.

6oDictionary of American Biography, s.v. "Van Rensselaer, Cortlandt"; Guy S. Klett, ed. "Minutes of Nebraska Presbytery, 1849-51, and of Presbytery of Highland, 1857 -58," Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society, 35 (June, December, 1957): 128-30, 251.

61Dictionaryof AmericanBiography, s.v. "Plumer, William Swan," and "Rice, Nathan Lewis";Encyclopedia of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, edited by Alfred Nevin (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Encyclopedia Publishing Company, 1884), 284; Omaha Nebraskian, October 1, 1856.

62Morton and Watkins, History, 1:192 and 2:267 -68, 274-75: Julius F. Schwarz, His­tory of the Presbyterian Church in Nebraska (Synod of Nebraska, 1924), 137, 214-15; Encyclopedia of Presbyterian Church, 110~ Omaha Nebraskian, May 27,1857; ibid" February 10, 1858, and March 26, 1859.

63Morton and Watkins, History, 2:555-56; William J. Ha.l'sha, The Story of Iowa {Omaha: Central West Co., 1890),302-03; D.C. Bloomer, "Notes on the History of Pot­tawattamie County. No, 4," Annals oflowa, 10 {July, 1872):180-81;M,M, Warner,His­tory of Dakota County, Nebraska,. (Lyons, Nebr.: Lyons Mirror Job Office, 1893), 201-03: Eighth Census, 1860; Huse, History of Dixon County, 171-72.

64Methodist Episcopal Church, Nebraska Conference, Minutes, 1865: Henry T. Davis, Solitary Places Made Glad (Cincinnati: Cranston and Stowe, 1890), 357 -58.

6SSee Francis 1. Moats, "The Educational Policy of the Methodist Episcopal Church prior to 1860" (Ph. D. dissertation, Universit;y ofIowa, 1926).

66D. W. Louneberry, "Letter from the Far West." Christian AdvQcate and Journal (New York) 32 (June 18, 1857): 98; Methodist Episcopal Church, Iowa Conference, Minutes, 1857,26.

67Pacific City (Iowa) Herald, March 24, 1859: Oreapolis, Nebraska Territory; Its Institutions, Advantages in Site, Etc. Etc . ... (Chicago: Press and Tribune, 1859).

6sNorthwestern Christian Advocate (Chicago), reprinted in Christian 'Advocate and Journal (New York), 38 (November 25, 1858):186.

69 John Evans, quoted in Edgar C. McMechen,Life of Governor Evans, 2nd Territorial Governor of Colorado (Denver: Wahlgreen Publishing Co., 1924),8.

70John Evans to wife Margaret, Oreapolis, June 12, 1859, John Evans Collection, State Historical Society of Colorado, D envel'.

71Rev. Heruy Bannister, "John Dempster, D.D.," Methodist Quarterly Review (New York), 46 {July, 1864):358-66; "Sketch of Methodist Biblical Institutes," ChristianAdvo­cate and Journal (New York), 34 (March 31, 1859):49.

72MethodistEpiscopai Church. Kaus8sandNebraska Conference, Minutes, 1859: John Evans to wife Margaret, Plattsmouth near Oreapolis, N.T., April 2, 1859. John Evans Collections, State Historical Society of Colorado.

370 Nebraska History

·:1Isaac Heaton to Milton Badger, Fremont !Nebr. Tel'.] , October 7,1858, AHMS, Ne­braska Letters #21. ~4Heuben Gaylord, "Address on Laying the Cornerstone, .. ," in Mary Welles Gaylord,

LifeandLaborsofRev. Reuben Gaylord, .. (Omaha: ReesPrintingCompany, 1889),425-28.

"'Orasmus C. Dake, quoted in unidentified newspaper clipping, 1866, Orasmus C. Dake Papers.

76NebraskaCityNews, August 15, 1857; BrownviUeNebraskaAdvertiser, October31, 1861; Nebraska University, Board of Trustees, Executive Committee, Minutes, March 7, 1859, NSHS; Nebraska University, Circular, 1864, J.S. GaylordPapers, NSHS;Omaha Nebraskian, November 4,1857.

jjEdwin G. Dexter, A History of Education in the United States (New York: Mac­millan, 1922), 445-56.

78Laws, 1856-60,287,408-09,605,669-70; Andreas, History, 1206; Platte Valley Herald (Plattsmouth, Nebr.), AugustS, 1861;People'sPress (Nebraska City), November 27" 1862; Nebraska City News, February 26, 1859; Martin, Catholic Church, 79.

19BrownvilleNebraskaAdvertiser, October 31, 1861;Nebraska City News, December 12, 1857.

80Savage and Bell, History of Omaha, 318. See also Verne C. Fuhlrodt, "The Pioneer HistolY of Fontenelle, Nebraska" (M.A. thesis, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, 1930).

8lPeople'sPress (Nebraska City), August15, 1860; Hemy E. Brown to AHMS, Colum­bus [Nebr. Ter.}, October 1,1867, AHMS, Nebraska Letters #313; Andreas, History, 1157-58,1161.

82BrownvilleNebraskaAdvertiser, February25, 1858, and February 17,1859; Council Journal, 3rd sess., 1857, 86; House Journal, 3rd sess., 1857, 165; Laws, 1856, 286-87.

83Independent (New York), 7 (August 30, 1855):277. See also Arley B. Show Pa,eers, NSHS.

4Paul M. Limbert, Denominational Policies in the Support and Supervision of Higher Education (New York: Columbia University, Teachers College, Bureau of Publications, 1929),8-15, 41-42; HalVey R. Bostrom, "Contributions to Higher Education by the Socie'ly for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West, 1843-1874" (Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1960): Duvall, Methodist Education, 123: Lewis J. Sherrill, Presbyterian Parochial Schools, 1846-1870 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1932; reprinted, New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969),3.

8C,Laws, 1857-65,406-08, 995·96; Brownville Nebraska Advertiser, February 18, 1858; Andreas, History, 1151-52. Town founders among the ten Omadi College incor­porators were Robert G. Alexander, John S. Bay, Jacob H. Hallock, William C. McBeath (1833-86), Alfred W. Puett, and Henry Ream (b. 1822). Bay, McBeath, and Stephen Ulery were merchants; Ream, the first hotel-keeper and flrst postmaster; Charles Blevin (1811-84), a carpenter; Puett, a lawyer and land agent Andreas, History, 61, 612; Brownville Nebraska Advertiser, April 1, 1858; Warner, History of Dakota County, 166-67, 177, 179-80, 200, 215: AP. DeMilt, Story of an Old Town (Omaha: Douglas Printing Company, 1902), 91ff.

86 J[onathanl H. Smith, "Nebraska Colonization Company," Quincy (Ill.) Herald, July 31 1854

87 L[ucien] H. Jones, Fontanelle [Nebr. Terr.]' to "Brother" (Sullivan) Searle, October 13

8 1865, Leroy Bisbee Papers, NSHS.

8Andreas,History, 1142-43; BrownvilleNebraskaAdvertiser, February 18, 1858,and July 14, 1859.

89NedC. Abbott, "ThenandNow," speech delivered to Rotary Club, Fremont, May 21, 1920, and Eoline Clark to Ned C. Abbott, Fremont, April 16, 1916, Ned C. AbbottPapers, NSHS.

Cities and Colleges 371

90 Andreas, History, 732. 91Counci[ Bluffs (Iowa) Chronotype, March 7,1855. 92 Allen L. Coate, Plat of Brownville (St. Louis, 1855), NSHS Map Collection. 93Eighth Census, 1860; Nebraska, Territorial Commissioner of Common Schools, 2nd

Annual Repor~ 1860-61. 94Sylvanus M. Duvall, The Methodist Episcopal Church and Education up to 1869

(N~w York: Colwnbia University, Bureau of Publications, 1928), 95ff. s"BrownvilleNebraskaAdvertiser, January 24, 1864; William Fulton, "Freighting and

Staging in Early Days," NSHS, Proceedings and Collections, 5 (2nd sel'., 1902}:261-62.

96Reuben Gaylord to Milton Badger, Omaha, April 20, 1861, AHMS, Nebraska Letters #88.

97Davis, Solitary Places, 260-61. 98McMechen, Governor Evans, 69. 99See Harry E. Kelsey, Jr.,FrontierCapitalist.· The Life of John Evans (Denver: State

Historical Sociew of Colorado and Pruett Publishing Company, 1969). lOOJolm Evans, quoted in Kelsey, Frontier Capitalist, 108. 101William Larimer, Jr., to Thomas Mellon, Council Bluff, May 31,1855, quoted in

Reminiscences, 20. 102B.F. Crary, "U niversities in the Northwest," Christian Advocate and Journal (N ew

York), 33 (April 15, 1858HO. l03Theron Baldwin, Eleventh Report of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and

Theological Education at the West, 1854, 43, quoted in Tewksbury, Founding of American Colleges, 4.

l04Henry Tappan, University Education (1850), 64, quoted in Tewksbtuy,Founding of American Colleges, 3.

lO$Isaac Heaton to Milton Badger, Fremont, October 15, 1859, AHMS, Nebraska Let­ters #40.

l06Eighth Census, 1860; Pacific City (Iowa) Enterprise, August 27 , 1857; Pacific City (Iowa) Herald, August 5, 1858, and March 8. 1860; Nebraska City News, January 17. 1857; Laws, 1857-62, 380, 430-37,041.

l07Lucien Jones to ARMS, Fontanelle [Nebr. Ter.] , January 5, 1865, ARMS, Nebras­ka Letters #278.

108Quoted in ibid l09Mrs. E{milyJ R[ichardson] Kline to Prof. A.B. Show, St Louis, Mo., September 14,

1889, Arley B. Show Papers, NSHS. l1oNebraska, General Association of Congregational Churches, Minutes, 1869 and

1872. l1lTheron Baldwin, Twenty-first Report of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate

and Theological Education at the West, 1864, 21, quoted in Tewksbtuy, Founding of American Colleges, 24.

112Tewksbury, Founding of American Colleges, 28.